ArtRage touch-screen art all the rage at CES (pictures)

Artists use Sony computers as a digital canvas for creating some stellar live art at CES using a feature-rich drawing program.

Read More

Digital expressions

At the rear of Sony's CES 2013 booth this year something truly inspired resided: beautiful works of art created on touch-screen tablets.

Artists David Kassan and April Wong spent the majority of their time at the show drawing portraits on the Sony Vaio Duo 11 hybrid tablet PC and the Sony Tap 20. To create the fascinating digital images, Kassan and Wong used ArtRage, a feature-rich drawing program for Windows, Mac, and iOS devices.

I watched as Wong -- who works for Sony's retail arm in California -- created a beautiful female subject with each swipe of a special digital pen (included with each Vaio Duo 11). The canvas option within the program produced a wonderful paper effect for her to work with, and I couldn't help but feel awe as she blended colors as if they were real paint. She spent about 30 minutes drawing this girl, with most of her digital creations taking around that long or up to an hour to complete.

A serious man

Contemporary painter David Kassan also displayed several pieces at the show, including this sketch of a man. Kassan found fame several years ago for creating mesmerizing scenes with the iPad app Brushes.

Breathe

David Kassan painted this amazing image of a woman exhaling.

"ArtRage has a lot of features that are very unique; it is one of the most realistic painting programs on the market in terms of replicating how real paint behaves," Kassan says. "As a traditional painter, I find this really appealing, as well as more intuitive as to how I would work on a real-life physical painting. The playback feature is incredible."

Childhood glee

Using the Vaio Tap 20 and the ArtRage program, David Kassan sketched this image of a smiling boy.

"The Tap 20 has a lot of possibilities within the lower art education market; its ability to be moved around an art room as well as ArtRage's playback of the paintings progress... children will easily be able to interact with the Tap," Kassan notes.

Backroom ballroom

April Wong imagined this serene scene of a young couple dancing the night away using ArtRage on the Vaio Duo 11. While Wong usually works in Sony's retail arm, she also delves into user interface design and creates art as a hobby. "I usually start with a circle. After that, I go from there," she says.